As the whole world knows, it was on the set of 'Proof of Life', that Meg, 38 and happily married for nine years to Hollywood hunk Dennis Quaid, 46, met volatile wild man Russell, 36. Reportedly Russell had been reluctant to do the film but Meg had courted him with gifts and had the script reworked to suit him. Having gotten cosy with each other on the Ecuador set, the pair arrived in London to candlelit dinners, late-night strolls and a David Bowie concert.
When their affair hit the tabloids last July, Dennis Quaid filed for divorce and Meg wasted no time seeking joint custody of their 8-year-old son, Jack. While the couples friends tried to make sense of Hollywood's Happiest couple splitting and tabloids enjoying the biggest screen affair since Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton, Meg went to Australia with Russell to enjoy life on his 560-acre farm and to attend the theatre (Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida) and Sydney's Olympics (the women's 100-meter final) and spend time on Tom Cruise's luxury yacht, Alibi.

Although Meg has insisted that her relationship with Russell didn't finish her marriage, tabloids everywhere have had a field day with how the actress, who built a career playing the sweet-natured everywoman next door, schemed her way into her co-stars bed. And women's magazines reflected on how Meg, who never forgave her estranged mother, Susan Jordan, for leaving the family (Meg was raised by her single father), seems to have repeated the exact same deed she herself found unforgivable.

You might expect the $15 million a picture actress to be guilt-ridden and devastated by all this, or at least upset by the tabloid frenzy, but interviewed for television to promote 'Proof of Life', she is glowing and together, a woman seemingly in control and on top of the world.
She has insisted on no personal questions, but she says of the way she has coped with the speculations surrounding the scandal, 'Sometimes what everybody says don't affect you so much.' A shrug. 'And I have great friends who have been supportive.'
Neither Meg nor Dennis Quaid have talked about the reason for their marriage breaking down, but it is obvious that it must have been stale for some time.
When Meg talks about her latest screen character, it seems almost as if she is talking about her own life.
' I wanted to do Proof of Life because the movie is how crisis can in an ironic way enrich your life and help you grow,' she explains of what brought her to the film.
' All of the characters start out with their lives really deadened. And I really appreciated the adventure of going to all these different places,' she adds of filming for 16 weeks high up in the Andes in Ecuador.
Didn't she miss her son, Jack?
'I had a schedule that was pretty great,' she answers. 'I would work two weeks, leave two weeks, work two weeks, and then leave two weeks. When I was leaving everyone who was on my team, I was excited to get on that plane - even though Ecuador was a great and beautiful country.'
Meg was also drawn to Proof of Life because she found the world of kidnapping was 'really, really fascinating.'

The film is a harrowing account of an American engineer (played by David Morse), who is kidnapped while working in a volatile South American country, His wife (Ryan) hires a kidnap negotiator (Russell) to go into the jungle and rescue her husband.
' I didn't know that the kidnap business was such a big business,' she insists. 'In the last twenty years multi-national corporations have spent like a billion dollars in kidnap ransom. That there is such a thing as kidnap insurance just blows my mind. If you are an executive at a multi-national company, then it's most likely you have insurance if you're ever kidnapped. It's that frequent; it's that kind of political instrument.'

Kidnapping attempts were a big concern for the film company while shooting in South America. Meg would have been an ideal kidnap victim, perfectly symbolising North American capitalism. One time a kidnap incident occurred just a block from the film company's hotel, when a heavily armed gang ambushed a limousine in broad daylight, shot the driver, and kidnapped the daughter of a businessman. The film company took out insurance on all the cast members for ransom. Meg was concerned about the kidnap threat for a little while.
' But there was so much security, everywhere we went, people were loaded up with weapons everywhere,' she recalls. 'But I couldn't take my son down there.'
Kidnapping proved to be the least of the productions worries. The filming was plagued by other problems; the worst rainy season in decades, resulting in mudslides blocking routes to locations and washing roads out. Then there were threat of volcano eruptions, a freak accident killing Morse's stand-in, a stabbing attack on one of the South American actors, an on-set heart attack, two cases of debilitating tropical diseases, cast and crew suffering from altitude sickness (much was filmed at a windswept rebel camp more than 14,000 feet up in the mountains) and political trouble (the day before they left for Ecuador there was a coup).
' It was insane,' smiles Meg of the filming. 'But I was luckier than the rest. They were up at 14,000 feet. Just mud up there, horrible weather, logistical problems, and I probably had the best hotel suit I've ever had in my life. It had a ballroom in it! I was high up in the mountains too, at 12,000 feet, and that was tough enough for me. It was really strange; your body reacts to altitude. Mine did anyway.'
' As for the threat of a volcano outbreak,' she says, 'on the call sheet it said what to do in case one of the volcanoes blew. There were things you cover your mouth with, and there were earthquake-type actions.'
' So many weird things happened on location of the film,' she continues. 'One day we were shooting in this really beautiful cathedral square and out of the blue an enormous hailstorm came. When we recovered from that there was a tear gas attack two blocks away.'
' Another day, the make-up trailer dislodged from it's tow truck. It just flew down the hill and wedged itself in someone's living room. It was stuck there, so we didn't have a makeup trailer one day.'
' And then one of the director assistants fell into an open sewer. Day after day, very strange things would happen. It was just nutty.'
' It was a real family feeling because of all the difficulties,' explains Meg. 'Russell's a great guy to have on the set. He strongly contributed to the family feeling at the end of the filming.'
' Russell is just so capable,' she gushes, for a brief moment not able to keep her love for Crowe hidden. 'Just the way he deals with people. He can do anything he sets his sights on.'
' And as an actor, he keeps things so simple and clear. He's really concentrated, really specific, really detail oriented. I learned quite a bit by watching him.'

BY OLIVER ONEAL/PLANET SYNDICATION